Saturday, May 16, 2015

My first reaction to the Babylock Destiny Machine was pure excitement but I convinced myself that I did not need it! I admit that I was a little irritated with myself for rushing to buy the Unity, even though I loved it. I was convinced that the Destiny was AMAZING but not needed, at least by me, no matter how cool it was!

Some facts you may not know about me:

a. I own a commercial embroidery business filled with Babylock Multineedles, A LOT OF THEM.

b. I have multi-needle Babylocks at home too!

c. I have limited 'selfish sewing time'

d. I own and use commercial digitizing software to include Floriani FTC-U, Palette 9 and Wilcom. I am a proficient digitizer, even though I tend to outsource the digitizing that comes into my shop as it is faster and more economically efficient. I do about 30% of digitizing jobs 'in-house'

You can see, why, I at first resisted the idea that I might need this machine. I waited, and waited some more before I even really contemplated it. It was after I saw the IQ Designer in a demo that I saw a need for this machine in my home! I was finding that I had developed a lackluster relationship with creating cute embroidery FOR MYSELF and family. I do this for a living so it is easy to become jaded with all the products available to us.

In a different blog I could tell you about the million reasons why I love and NEEDED this machine, but for now I will just tell you about one. The IQ Designer! What is the IQ Designer? Well for me it is a DIGITAL COLORING PAD that can take flat artwork, ANYTHING I choose, and make it into an embroidery design.

Here is what Babylock says it is:

Draw on screen, scan in, or import your own artwork and the Destiny will digitize it before your eyes. Using the IQ Designer, you can then edit your new embroidery designs down to the stitch. If you're finishing a quilt, use the auto-stippling feature to draw and choose exactly where your stippling will go

Today I will show you a tree I was able to create using the IQ Designer. I originally wanted an owl but changed my mind as I found that I could not locate a cute one that was in BLACK OUTLINE mode. I am sure you can use a pic like the one below, I just haven't gotten that far yet!

I guess I will need to figure out how to use color filled images

Since I have limited 'playtime', I went with this tree, which I found online as FREE CLIP ART.

Use the provided magnets and clean artwork

The thin small flat magnets work to hold the artwork in place while the item is scanned. You don't have to use all, just enough to hold it in place.

Next just choose IQ Designer on your HOME screen. Lights will dim and frame will move to scan the artwork. Be sure that area is clear so frame can move.

Lights automatically dim for cleanest scan

Once the artwork has scanned it will show up on the screen of the machine, use the red arrows to CROP OUT the magnets and anything else you don't want to create stitches of.

Crop the scan using the red arrows

Once art work is cropped you are on your way to creating your design, Using the edit screen you can add stitches to any closed area of the design, if there are open areas then you may want to use the PENCIL tool to close those areas. There is a LARGE BLACK ARROW at the lower portion of the screen, this is your UNDO. If you make a mistake just choose UNDO.

Ready to add some color to this design!

Here is part of my design created.

Edit screen where you create your stitches

And here it is ready to stitch, I added the lettering from the Alphabet Menu as the Destiny allows you to edit, change, create, re-place, combine or remove at your leisure.

Design with lettering added

It would take a ridiculous amount of writing to give you every detail of the IQ Designer so I will give you a bit of advice. Well, two bits. The first- if you are considering a new machine and want one with all the bells and whistles...this is YOUR MACHINE.

The second bit of advice, if you manage to wrangle one of these beauties I encourage you to purchase the LOVE OF SEWING package that is available. It is a warranty of 4 years for your machine PLUS access to the hundreds of videos available to Babylock owners on ALL OF THEIR machines, to include the Destiny. You can watch the videos from the comfort of your own home, any time day/night.

There is a wealth of knowledge in there and I myself have thoroughly enjoyed using it. I am not really a manual type of girl, I like to watch a video and learn that way. If you prefer DOCUMENTS then there are PDF's for every class, class notes that you can print to refer to. It is a really neat program. The link is below if you would like to check it out.

Here is a photo so far of the tree being stitched out, don't forget that this began as a flat piece of clip art and I used only the machine to create the stitching. Well, that makes it sound like I did something other than point and click...he he he.

Design while it is stitching out

This is truly an amazing feature. For me to not have to spend large quantities of time digitizing something fun for my mom, it is just really exciting to see how far these machines have come over the last decade! The lesson I learned was to use fairly clean LINE ART, broken lines will need to be re-drawn.

I am also considering using adult coloring pages like this sample below. Wouldn't that be fun? With the machine doing all the 'creative' work I see in my future a lot of time to play and enjoy embroidering again!

Page from an adult coloring book

It is also possible to add stippling automatically around any design you choose, which is what I did here. I only wanted stippling around my tree.

Scanned the finished embroidery and added the stippling

Here is the completed project, it will be a small pillow for my mom's house, they are moving from Tennessee back to Texas to be with some elderly siblings and I want her to remember that while I loved having her and dad so close, it is now time for them to be near his sisters. All seasons of life are SPECIAL!

With the stippling added

Head on over to your nearest Babylock retailer to fulfill your DESTINY!